Partner Article

Wage deals 'beginning to inch up again'

Pay rises are edging up - with some of the most recent deals worth at least 4%, according to a new report. Settlements in the first three months of the year matched the 3.5% average seen in 2007, but higher awards are being made this month, pay analysts Incomes Data Services have found.

A study of 30 deals so far this month shows that two out of three were worth 4% or more, mainly in utilities and chemicals firms. More than half of those from April are part of long term deals, mostly linked to the rate of inflation.

Ken Mulkearn of IDS said: “The higher levels of increases we are seeing under new April deals in the private sector are based on continued high levels of inflation. “RPI inflation has been above 4% for most of the period since the end of 2006, despite earlier predictions that it would fall, and this may underlie some of the strengthening pay pressures.

“And as ever, there’s a substantial gap between pay rises in the public sector and those in the private sector.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .